Actual dates change when calendar changes or status date changes.

[Scott27]

After changing the calendar or updating the status date, many old completed
activities change their actual finish dates. Not all completed activities
change. Any idea how to fix this or stop it from happening? MS Project 2003
Standard.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Scott27,

I would check Tools>Options the Calculation tab. There are several options
that which impact tracking changes if a status date is changed. (Move end of
completed parts after status date back to status date and Move start of
remaining parts before status date forward to status date.)

As to why it changes only some tasks, my assumption is that some tasks may
have been set up with differing task types (fixed units, fixed work, or fixed
duration.)

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[Scott27]

JulieS,
Thanks for responding. I looked at the options area, and none of those were
checked. The fixed units/durations part helped. It was the fixed duration
items that were changing. I tried to update the status date after changing
all of the tasks to fixed units, but the same activities changed their Actual
finish dates. The only other areas where I can find a difference between the
activities are some are marked as effort driven and others are not. The
differences don't correspond to the ones that are changing. I really
appreciate the help.

Thanks,
Scott27

 

[Scott27]

I may have found a solution. Changing the activities to fixed units, then
update the status date, uncheck the effort driven, re-enter the durations.
That put the actual dates back to the original dates. I hope it doesn't have
to be redone every time the status date changes.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I have to wonder if you have actually entered a real Actual Finish date for
the tasks as you think you have. Remember that there are two different sets
of fields - there's Start and Finish and then there's Actual Start and
Actual Finish. They are not the same thing. While Actual Start and Finish
are just what they say, the just plain Start and Finish fields represent the
date the task is expected (or was expected) to start and finish. When you
enter a specific date in the Actual Start or Finish field it will cause the
same date to be entered in the scheduled Start or Finish but it doesn't work
the other way around. To view the Actual Start and Actual Finish fields,
you need to display the Tracking table from the View Tables menu.

If those tasks that are changing had their actuals posted by entering a date
in the scheduled Start and Finish columns in the regular Gantt chart entry
table, you haven't actually posted actuals at all but merely supplied
revised expected start and finish dates. If you then change calendars etc
those dates might change since they're only expected dates and as such are
not engraved in stone. Entering dates in the Tracking table Actual fields,
otoh, says that those dates are true history and as such they will be locked
down as they represent what really did happen instead of just what was
expected to happen.

 

[Scott27]

Steve,
They are definitely Actuals. The activities that are changing are 100%
complete in the percent complete column, and have actual starts & finishes in
the actual start and actual finish column.
Since my original posting, I've found that constraints are being added to
the completed tasks that don't match the actual dates, and the durations are
zeroing out on some of the tasks, when the status date is changed. On
activities that did not change the actual dates, many also show zero days
duration, and when I add a day it will jump up to the duration of the
activity plus a day. Example 0+1 = 16 for a 15 day duration activity. The
loss of duration also happens on the tasks that do change. Some activities
get longer and some shorter.

To clean out the trash I sent the file to Access and back (.MDB). The file
went from 2931 KB to 2091 KB. I hope that helps.

No resources are loaded because they are tracked in another software.

I've looked through all of my options and found nothing unusual. I checked
with the other schedulers to match to their options, we match.

Thanks for any help,
Scott27

 

[JulieS]

You are most welcome Scott. Glad to know you found the solution!

Julie